Elsewhere the current of events ran equally fast. In Sicily Ferdinand bombarded the revolted city of Messina (hence his nickname Bomba), and forced it to surrender; and in Naples he made a mock of the constitution. Rome was in horrid confusion. Pius IX appointed Pellegrino Rossi prime minister, in hope that his energy and vigour might restore peace and quiet; but Rossi was murdered on the steps of the _Cancelleria_. Rioters wandered at will about the city. Shots were fired near the papal palace on the Quirinal. The Pope, terribly frightened, fled from the city, and took refuge across the Neapolitan border at Gaeta. He was besought to return, but would not. The revolutionary leaders convoked an assembly of Roman citizens to decide what form of government to adopt, and, though the Pope hurled excommunications at all who should take part, the radicals met (February 5, 1849), declared the Temporal Power at an end, and established the Roman Republic. In Tuscany the republican fire likewise blazed up; the Grand Duke ran after the Pope to Gaeta, and a provisional government was appointed with a triumvirate at its head. In the north, Piedmont and Austria renewed the war. On March 23, at Novara, a little town on the Piedmontese side of the Ticino, the deciding battle was fought. The Austrians were completely victorious. King Carlo Alberto asked for a truce. Radetzky's terms were so severe that the king, feeling himself the chief cause of this severity, resolved to be of no further detriment to his country. He abdicated in favour of his son, Vittorio Emanuele II, and went into exile, where he soon died. The young king made peace on harsh terms. All rational hope for the Italian cause was at an end, but the dismembered parts struggled on. The men of Brescia defended themselves gloriously for days, barricading every alley and making a fort of every house, but they were overpowered; the Austrian general Haynau inflicted atrocities that made his name a byword throughout Europe. His own report says, "I ordered that no prisoner should be taken, but that every person seized with arms in his hands should be immediately put to death, and that the houses from which shots came should be burned."[23] In Sicily the revolutionists resisted in vain, and the king's authority was reestablished throughout the island. In Naples all liberals were shamefully and most cruelly persecuted. In Tuscany the mild-mannered Tuscans, dismayed at their own radical government, invited the Grand Duke to return; so he came, bringing Austrian soldiers with him.